Daily there are articles in the news paper, programs on television about the problems associated with overweight or obese children, but parents just don’t seem to be getting the message.  If you have a toddler, preschooler or child or adolescent in your household who is overweight, the time to do something about it is now.  Don’t leave it until they are older as the problem only gets worse.

My job and passion is writing active programs for children and sharing the benefits of an active healthy lifestyle.  Life is busy for everyone these days and getting your family into a healthy lifestyle might take a bit of extra effort to begin with, but taken in stages, you will find it is easier to adapt to than you first thought.

The interesting thing is that despite all the information about the pandemic of obesity the message doesn’t seem to be getting through. The effects of overweight or obesity in kids are far reaching - Heart disease, type II diabetes, joint problems, social problems, high blood pressure. Here are some alarming statistics:

• In some part of Africa obesity has replaced malnutrition as the major nutritional problem with overweight/obesity being as much as four times more common than malnutrition. (Miller 2004)
• In Australia childhood obesity is rising and accelerating at an annual rate of 1%, a trend that suggests that half of all young Australians will be overweight by the year 2025. (ASSO 2005).  Currently it is thought that 32% of Australian kids are overweight.

As I see it the first problem is that the issue of obesity is a very sensitive one and not one that parents whom the matter effects will talk about openly. To be blunt, it is ultimately down to the parents that the child has become overweight. I believe the only way to really deal with the problem is to take the sensitivity out of it and be open about it.Another problem is the way that healthy choices are packaged to kids. Healthy choices are never packaged as being appealing and satisfying, rather that you should eat them because they are good for you.  The fact is that eating something nutritious is far more satisfying than something that is not. 

It is never too early to do something about an overweight child – in fact the earlier the better. Healthy eating and being active should be part of what we teach our kids, just as we do with road safety and teaching them to tie shoe laces.  The time to teach kids about healthy eating and exercise is from when you first begin to give them solid food, that way you won’t have to break a life time of bad eating habits. For the sake of our kids we all need to teach by example and it is important not to use food as a reward. We should really be eating to nourish our bodies rather than just for pleasure.

Putting on weight is far easier than loosing it. There are no short cuts to getting fit and healthy and to staying that way, it does require effort. From experience I find that all too often kids are allowed to give up because an active program gets too hard.  In order to slow down the rate at which a child is putting on weight has to be a combination of nutrition and exercise – to achieve a lasting effective result, you cannot tackle one without the other.

If a child is to put on just an extra half a kilogram of weight over the space of a year, they just need to consume 10 kcalories (about quarter of a packet of crisps) over what they require in each day.  Half a kilogram too much weight doesn’t sound much, but put this on year after year from the age of 5 and by the time that child is 10 they will be carrying an extra 2½ kg of extra weight.  So by the time they reach 15 they will be carrying an minimum excess of 4½ kg.  Having soft drinks in a day adds at least 188kcal to the average child’s diet. 

Can’t see the wood from the trees –start trying to implement these simple ideas:

1. Make becoming healthy fun, make time to do active things as a family.
2. Stop fizzy drinks – most soft drinks have around 9 teaspoons of sugar per can.
3. Cut down on snacks – rather give your child a wholesome sandwich or a piece of fruit.  Snacks are loaded with fats, sugars and salt.
4. For preschool and primary school children, cut down small screen time to a maximum of half an hour per day.
5. Have skipping ropes, hoops, balls, bikes easily accessible to your children.
6. If possible have 30 minutes before homework after school where the kids have to be outside – just being active!
7. Don’t let your kids snack whilst watching tv –they crave sweet, high fat snacks and because they are not concentrating on what they are doing they will eat more than they need.
8. If you have a family member who struggles with weight – make it a family challenge to become more healthy – you will all feel the benefit of it.
9. Try to become more conscious of what you are giving your children to eat and drink
10. Offer a wide variety of healthy foods regularly to your children.  If you offer healthy options against unhealthy options – you know which option they will choose.

Kids Exercise runs a Funfit program, this is a fun exercise program is run in conjunction with a Nutritionist and helps to slow the rate at which an overweight child is putting on weight. Call Sue on 0433151795 / 0294514744.